Pondering the two Jake Arrietas

There were times on Friday when Jake Arrieta lookedunhittable and there were times when he couldn’t finish off hitters the way apitcher at his talent level should, but the Orioles overcame his rocky fourthinning to deliver a resounding 9-5 victory over the Minnesota Twins in thesold-out home opener at Camden Yards.

So, what should we make of Jake?

He won back his place in the starting rotation with a strong performance this springand seemed poised to pop after a very difficult 2012 season. Instead, hedisplayed both ends of the Jake Arrieta spectrum, handling the strong hittersin the upper half of the Twins lineup and struggling against the less-heraldedguys at the other end of the batting order.

“In fairness to him, Minnesota – talking to our advance scouts -- they had a goodspring,’’ manager Buck Showalter said. “It’s a good club. That’s a toughlineup. It’s a tough lineup to bullpen up against, too, because they’ve gotleft, right, switch. They throw a lot of looks at you. They’re on their way togetting back there again.

The Twins should get credit for some tough at-bats, but Arrieta again battled himself andran up his pitch count, a tendency that costs him baserunners and keeps himfrom consistently working deep into games.

“You see why Jake has a chance to be so good and it kind of gets away from him alittle bit,’’ Showalter said. “We got back in that ballgame…we tied it up andthen go back out there and struggle a little bit. That’s something we need tobe better at.”

Maybe Arrieta is just changing the script. He delivered a terrific performanceagainst the Twins on Opening Day here a year ago, but followed that up with adisappointing season that brought him to spring training needing to provehimself all over again. This year, he’ll need to get more consistent inrelatively short order, because Showalter has some attractive other optionswaiting in the wings.